Elsevier

Biological Conservation

Volume 222, June 2018, Pages 180-188
Biological Conservation

Conservation conflicts: Behavioural threats, frames, and intervention recommendations

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2018.04.012Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
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Highlights

  • Conservation conflicts are widespread and framed in various ways

  • Human behaviours in conflicts are targeted by technical, cognitive, economic, enforcement and stakeholder-based interventions

  • Intervention recommendations associate with different conflict behaviours and frames

  • Interventions recommendations are rarely supported by strong scientific evidence or Theories of Change

  • Author perceptions and disciplinary silos may influence both framing and intervention recommendations

Abstract

Conservation conflicts are widespread and are damaging for biodiversity, livelihoods and human well-being. Conflict management often occurs through interventions targeting human behaviour. Conservation interventions are thought to be made more effective if underpinned by evidence and a Theory of Change – a logical argument outlining the steps required to achieve goals. However, for conservation conflicts, the evidence and logic supporting different types of interventions has received little attention. Using conflict-related keywords, we reviewed trends in behavioural intervention recommendations across conflict contexts globally, as published in peer-reviewed literature. We developed typologies for conflict behaviours, intervention recommendations, and conflict frames and identified associations between them and other geographical variables using Pearson's Chi-squared tests of independence. Analysing 100 recent articles, we found that technical interventions (recommended in 38% of articles) are significantly associated with conflicts involving wildlife control and the human-wildlife conflict frame. Enforcement-based interventions (54% of articles) are significantly associated with conflicts over illegal resource use, while stakeholder-based interventions (37% of articles) are associated with the human-human conflict frame and very highly developed countries. Only 10% of articles offered “strong” evidence from the published scientific literature justifying recommendations, and only 15% outlined Theories of Change. We suggest that intervention recommendations are likely influenced by authors' perceptions of the social basis of conflicts, and possibly also by disciplinary silos.

Keywords

Human-wildlife
Conflict
Interventions
Behavioural change
Evidence

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